PROTOCOL: The Effectiveness of Neighbourhood Watch

Introduction

Neighbourhood watch (also known as block watch, apartment watch, home watch and community watch) grew out of a movement in the US that promoted greater involvement of citizens in the prevention of crime (Titus, 1984). One of the first recorded neighbourhood watch programmes in the US was the Seattle Community Crime Prevention Project launched in 1973 (Cirel et al., 1977). One of the first recorded neighbourhood watch schemes in the UK was the Home Watch programme implemented in 1982 in Cheshire (Anderton, 1985).

Since the 1980s, the number of neighbourhood watch schemes in the UK has expanded considerably. It was recently estimated from the results of the 2000 British Crime Survey that in that year over a quarter (27%) of all households (approximately six million households) in England and Wales were members of a neighbourhood watch scheme (Sims, 2001). The National Neighbourhood Watch Association estimated for the same time period that there were 155,000 schemes in operation. It is reasonable for researchers to ask, therefore, whether such large investments in time and resources are effective in reducing crime (the primary objective of neighbourhood watch).

Early evaluations

One of the first evaluations of neighbourhood watch in the UK was conducted in Bristol (Veater, 1984). The study included pretest and posttest victim and public attitude surveys conducted in the scheme area. Police-recorded crime data were collected for an adjacent area for comparison. The results of the victimisation surveys showed that the offence rate fell from a total of 247 reported offences in 979 households (a rate of 25 offences per 100 households) in the first round to 174 reported offences in 1,060 households (a rate of 16 offences per 100 households) in the second round. During the period of the research, the number of police-recorded crimes committed in the control area increased. The report concluded that the programme was effective.

In many respects, the evaluation was advanced for its time and included victim surveys as well as police recorded crime. However, like many of the evaluations that followed, there were a number of methodological problems. The changes in victimisation rates were not subjected to statistical significance testing. The response rate for both surveys was fairly low (just over 50%) and potential differences in the demographic profile of the experimental and control areas were not taken into account.

Another early study conducted by the police in Merseyside in England also experienced problems of evaluation design and research quality (Jenkins and Latimer, 1987). The study was based on a comparison of police-recorded crime rates for a period 12 months before and 12 months after the launch of the Home Watch scheme in four areas of Merseyside. The four schemes were implemented in areas covering between 43 and 97 households. A public attitudes survey was conducted among residents. In three of the four areas the number of residential burglaries was lower in the posttest period than in the pretest period and the schemes were claimed to have been a success. However, the numbers involved were very small. In the first area, the number of burglaries fell from 7 to 6, in the second area, from 19 to 5, and in the third area, from 4 to ‘nearly zero’.

One of the most sophisticated evaluations of neighbourhood watch was conducted in nine areas in Chicago (Rosenbaum et al., 1985). The research was based on a quasi-experimental, untreated control group design with pretest and posttest surveys. Crime and public attitude surveys were conducted in programme and non-programme areas before the launch and again one year following the launch. The results showed that two programme areas experienced a significant increase in the number of victimisations per respondent over the study period. One area showed a decrease in victimisations, which was ‘marginally significant’. The other areas showed no change in victimisation.

The results of existing reviews of the evaluation research on neighbourhood watch show that the results are mixed. However, there is one notable theme to the results. Studies conducted by the police tend to conclude that neighbourhood watch is effective in preventing crime, while studies conducted by independent researchers tend to conclude that neighbourhood watch is ineffective (Rosenbaum, 1987, Bennett, 1990).

The body of research is variable in quality. In the absence of a systematic review, it is difficult to arrive at an overall conclusion about the effectiveness of neighbourhood watch in preventing crime. In order to determine programme effectiveness from evaluation research, it is necessary to conduct a rigorous review of the literature that controls for research quality and standardises results.

The theory of neighbourhood watch

The most frequently recorded mechanism by which neighbourhood watch is supposed to reduce crime is as a result of residents looking out for suspicious activities and reporting these to the police. The link between reporting and crime reduction is not usually elaborated in the literature. It has been argued that visible surveillance might reduce crime as a result of its effect on the perceptions and decision making of potential offenders. Hence, watching and reporting might deter offenders if they are aware of the propensity of the local residents to report suspicious behaviour and if they perceive this as increasing the risks of being caught.

It is also possible that neighbourhood watch schemes might reduce crime as a result of an increase in the flow of useful information from the public to the police. An increase in information concerning crimes in progress and suspicious persons and events might lead to a greater number of arrests and convictions and result (when a custodial sentence is passed) in a reduction in crime through the incapacitation of local offenders.

Neighbourhood watch might also reduce crime through various mechanisms of social control. Neighbourhood watch might enhance community cohesion, community activism, and collective efficacy, which might also increase the ability of communities to control crime in residential areas.

Evaluations of neighbourhood watch need to take into account the problems of causal order when investigating mechanisms. It is possible that neighbourhood watch schemes are implemented in areas that already have low levels of crime and high levels of social control. Hence, the evaluation would need to take into account the temporal order of change in both the independent and dependent variables. This should be possible in studies that include pre-test and post-test measures.

Programme elements

Neighbourhood watch is often implemented as part of a comprehensive package. The typical package is sometimes referred to as the ‘big three’ and includes neighbourhood watch, property-marking and home security surveys. Some programmes include a third or fourth element such as a recruitment drive for special constables, increased regular foot patrols, citizen patrols, educational programmes for young people, auxiliary police units, and victim support services.

Neighbourhood watch schemes in the United States are often based on small blocks of dwellings and include no more than 20–30 households. The size of the Block Watch units in the Seattle programme (one of the first programmes in the United States) varied between just 10 and 15 households. Schemes in Britain tend to be larger and some cover residential areas of 3,000 or more households.

Neighbourhood watch schemes can be both public and police initiated. Schemes launched in the UK during the early period of a programme tended to be police initiated (e.g. the early neighbourhood watch schemes in the Metropolitan Police District). More recently, neighbourhood watch schemes have been launched mainly at the request of the public. Some police departments continue initiating their own schemes, even when the programme is fully developed. A programme implemented in Detroit, for example, maintained a section of police-initiated schemes in order to promote neighbourhood watch in areas that were unlikely to generate public-initiated requests.

Block Watches are usually run by a block captain who is responsible to a block coordinator or block organiser. The block co-ordinator acts as the liaison person to the local police department. Neighbourhood watch schemes in the UK often include street co-ordinators (equivalent to block captains) and area co-ordinators (equivalent to the block organiser).

There is little information in the literature on the number and type of neighbourhood watch meetings. The evidence that does exist suggests that some schemes have public meetings that involve all of the residents participating in the scheme, while others have meetings that involve only the organisers of the scheme.

The funding of neighbourhood watch schemes is nearly always a joint venture between the local police department and the scheme members through their fund-raising activities. The relative contribution of the two sources varies considerably. Some schemes in the United States are provided with no more than an information package from the local police. Others are provided with police facilities for the production of newsletters and the use of police premises for meetings. Apart from police funding, the majority of schemes are encouraged to raise some funds from other sources such as voluntary contributions, local businesses, and the proceeds of fetes, and raffles.

Crimes targeted

There is strong consensus in the literature that the main aim of neighbourhood watch is crime prevention. There are small variations among the programmes in terms of which crimes are targeted. The vast majority of programmes identify residential burglary as the sole or most important target crime of neighbourhood watch. Some programmes focus solely on residential burglary, but most list other offences which it is hoped neighbourhood watch will reduce. The list of other offences is sometimes explicit (e.g. ‘street robberies, auto thefts and vandalism’) or general (e.g. ‘street crime’ and ‘property crime’).

(a) Criteria for inclusion and exclusion of studies in the review

(b) Search strategy for identification of studies

(c) Description of methods used in primary research

The main types of research design used for evaluating neighbourhood watch schemes have been discussed in previous sections. The most common is some kind of quasi-experimental design. The strongest quasi-experimental designs are based on before and after measures in experimental and comparable control areas. It is expected that this will be the most common design used among studies included in the review. The studies excluded from the review will be those that have adopted a more restricted version of the above. Excluded studies will be listed, but not included in the meta-analysis.

Examples of included and excluded quasi-experimental designs can be found in the first section of the protocol.

(d) Criteria for determination of independent findings

The guidelines for the preparation of review protocols (Version 1.0, January 1^st 2001) noted that some evaluations might produce multiple outcome measures. These can occur when: (1)

there are multiple methods of measuring the same outcome, and

The guidelines ask whether multiple outcomes from the same or related evaluations are independent data points.

When multiple outcome measures are provided (e.g. multiple outcome measures of crime) we would list the results for each measure. However, the meta-analysis would be based on only one measure. The measure chosen would be guided by a predetermined method of prioritising the results (e.g. victimisation data used in preference to official record data).

The main measure of effect size will be the odds ratio, calculated from numbers of crimes before and after the intervention in experimental and control areas (as in Welsh and Farrington, 2002).

(e) Details of coding categories

One of the reviewers (KH) initially will extract information from the study using a specially designed data extraction spreadsheet. Another reviewer (TB) will check all of the entries against the original study reports. A copy of the entire data set, with a list of any disagreements, will be sent to the third reviewer (DPF) for checking and arbitration over disagreements. Where possible, the author(s) of the report will be contacted to help resolve any ambiguities and to provide missing information.

The information extracted will include: author, publication date, study date, location, physical context of the intervention, type of intervention, duration of the intervention, duration of the evaluation, sample size, other interventions employed at the time, outcome measures, data source, research design, results, author(s) conclusion.

(f) Statistical procedure and conventions

Several meta-analyses will be carried out covering different types of programme and different types of crimes. The odds ratios calculated for each evaluation will be combined as summarised in Lipsey and Wilson (2001). Inverse variance weights will be used to combine effect sizes.

When sufficient information exists, the effects of mediating and moderating factors will be used to refine the meta-analysis. Mediating variables are part of the causal sequence (e.g. surveillance and reporting to the police) and moderating variables are contextual variables that might modify the causal sequence (e.g. community and individual characteristics).

(g) Treatment of qualitative research

The systematic review will be based on quantitative evaluations only. However, we will collect information on qualitative research and present the results of these studies separately as a narrative review. Qualitative findings may derive from the qualitative sections of quantitative research (both those included and excluded from the systematic review) and from wholly qualitative studies.